A church is generally seen as a place of prayer and peace, but that security was shattered Friday evening when a woman in her 40s was shot outside of Freedom in Christ Ministry in Dorchester, according to police and witnesses.

Boston police said the bullet only grazed the woman, who was sitting in a car, and that she was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

“The victim was alert, conscious, and talking at the scene,” Officer James Kenneally, a police spokesman, said.

The shooting took place at about 6:30 p.m. just after the woman, who was not identified, came out of family service at Freedom in Christ Ministry on Washington Street. The woman was sitting in the passenger side of a car parked directly outside the church, according to eyewitness Rosaline Turay.

Turay, 71, of Dorchester, was sitting in her car with her 5-year-old granddaughter, parked in front of the victim’s car.

She said she had noticed two men having a heated argument on the sidewalk outside the church, and hurried her granddaughter into the car.

“It was very tense,” she said. “I started the car and all of a sudden I heard ‘bam bam bam,’ and my granddaughter just slid down [in her seat].”

Turay pointed to two places where the bullets hit her car, including the right side mirror, just feet away from where her granddaughter was sitting.

A bullet also went through the windshield of the victim’s car, grazing her.

“A guy came out of the car and said, ‘My mother is shot,’ ” Turay said. “There was blood all over her.”

Turay, visibly shaken, said she did not see the gun, or whether it belonged to one of the men she had seen arguing.

“We just came from family service talking about unity, how we need to pray together, about protection, and then this,” Turay said. “This is something that really, really hit me hard.

“She was so cheerful and vibrant when she came out of the church,” Turay added.

The victim was a relatively new member of the church, attending services for just two months, according to the Ministry’s secretary, Dee Ribeiro.

“She’s a beautiful lady, a beautiful spirit,” said Ribeiro. “It was her faith that saved her.”

The woman was taken to Boston Medical Center for treatment, according to Ribeiro.

Freedom in Christ Ministry is located near another church, the Global Ministries Christian Church, just a half a block away.

The church’s pastor, Bruce Wall, posted a response to the shooting on his Facebook page.

“There was a shooting in the vicinity of our church this evening. Two men opened fire at a church across the street from our church. A women was grazed in her head. Cars were shot up. We will not tolerate the shootings coming back to Codman Square. Ten blocks around our church is a no shooting zone. I want the shooters to know that we will turn you in. There is no place to hide.”

Police are investigating but no arrests had been made as of late Friday night, according to Kenneally.

Originally published in The Boston Globe on May 14, 2016.